By Erin Hawkins
Olympic Peninsula News Group
SEQUIM — Sequinter Jam, a multi-venue event free for youths 19 and younger, will kick off the first weekend of winter break Sunday.
The event will feature performances by Kingston natives and pop-rock band The Exchange, pro skateboarder Tim Byrne, Humble Beast hip-hop musician Foreknown, DJ Aktual, Big Oak and Eddie Johnson.
Stages will be set up at the Sequim unit of the Olympic Peninsula Boys &Girls Clubs at 400 W. Fir St. and Sequim High School auditorium at 601 N. Sequim Ave.
The event is from 7 p.m. to midnight starting and ending at the Boys &Girls Club.
For more information about the event, you can follow on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sequinterjam.
Guests will start at the Boys &Girls Club for the first set of performances, shuffle over to the high school with trained volunteers for the second set and then back to the Boys &Girls Club for a grand prize drawing and DJ dance party.
The grand prize drawing will include big-ticket items such as an iPad or Beats headphones.
David Piper, youth pastor at Dungeness Community Church and representative of Sequinter Jam, said he is anticipating about 500 youths to attend the event.
“We picked that Sunday night because there’s nothing going on in Sequim,” he said.
About 12 local churches and their pastors from the Sequim and Port Angeles areas collaborated on the event. Some fundraised for the event, while others provided sound equipment, advertising and “people power.”
Piper explained that while the purpose of the event is to provide youths with something to do and spread the message of Jesus’ love as Christians, Sequinter Jam brought local churches together for the first time in a long time.
“The bigger, wider level is having churches come together to work together,” he said.
“For so long, it seems like [churches] all do their own thing,” Piper said, referring to how in the past, one church normally would fundraise and plan an event on its own.
Jonathan Simonson, pastor at King’s Way Foursquare Church, also shares Piper’s thoughts.
“This is probably the most I’ve seen the churches work together in the area of youth,” Simonson said.
He agreed that most of the time, churches do their own thing in terms of growth, but as youth pastors, they are all serving the youths in the same way.
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Erin Hawkins is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at ehawkins@sequimgazette.com.
David Piper Humble Beast hip-hop musician Foreknown will perform at Sequinter Jam.
Humble Beast hip-hop musician Foreknown will perform at Sequinter Jam. (David Piper)
